Grief.

So I don’t handle grief all that well, and on the flip side of that coin I am becoming expert at it.

As a gifted person I form deep attachments to things and people, in my case mostly people, who have an impact or play a part in my life journey. Think about this for a minute. One person could make a throw away comment about something that moves, touches, inspires or alters my pathway in life is some way, and I am attached.

Inevitably they do not feel the same way and I become unattached quite quickly. I feel the pain of the loss, and all of it is deep. There isn’t a sense of ‘overreacting’ as that person is now an important part of why I am the way I am.

If I am left to my own devices I would become a ‘bubble girl’ and live in a cave away from everyone that can cause those flinching, pain filled moments. As long as I had my laptop and unlimited supplies of electricity and The Big Bang Theory episodes. On a side note, I totally get Sheldon’s world and think all the rest should feel delighted, honoured and grateful that he chooses to spend time with them. Seriously. The man is a genius and when there is that much information going on in his brain it is absolutely unreasonable for them to expect him to navigate his way through the quagmire that is social niceties when chances are, given the human variable, he’ll never get it right anyway. AND if they really loved him they wouldn’t expect him to!

Anyway, as I was saying, grief. My childhood wasn’t a rosy playground of fun, games and laughter. I had a terrible time at school and though I am clear my Mum loved and still loves me to bits and is committed to my life working (evident by how often she tells me it isn’t and how to fix it) I wasn’t an easy child to cope with. I was quite stubborn and insisted on having everything explained. Not for me the “because I said so” and consequently often drove my mother up the wall, leading to another episode of grief to deal with.

I got good dealing with grief through practice. I see now that this practice was necessary though, as if I hadn’t had those relatively tiny ‘breaks-in-connection’ the big ones would have ended me.

There is a point to all this. One of the people who I have firmly connected to my happy childhood memories is my cousin. Two years younger than me, her and her sister (my age) lived a couple of hours drive away, and so on long weekends and school holidays we visited each other. Living on a 16acre hobby farm and not really thinking all that much of the two TV channels at our disposal (pre digital and foxtel, the horror!) we created a lot of games and found some ingenious and fantastic ways to amuse ourselves.

This poem is written for her, by me, about the games we played, as she tragically took her own life last year in October, not knowing just how much she was loved and treasured and the special place and connection she will always have in my memories, heart and soul.

No More.I woke up this morning,And found you had left,gone without saying goodbye,here no more, leaving me bereftno more card games,until late into the nightjust hanging out togetherputting the world to rightsno more climbing treespretending we were homein the branches reading booksleaving our minds free to roam.no more playing monstersunder blankets in the darkthree of us falling on each othergiggles at every small remarkno more playing board games,always looking for that pickleI wish I had realisedthat life could be so fickle.no more turning beds overlights out, playing warsusing torches as spotlightsto mend imagined soresno more dodgy dance showsusing eighties tunes,but such a fantastic wayto spend our afternoonsno more playing grown upsnamed daffodil, tulip or roseliving each others dramasif only we could have known.It makes me sad to know,new memories are now no moreI dream that you’ll now feel peaceBut you’ve left my heart so sore.I know that the day will comeand we’ll meet again I’m surebut that seems like forever awayso right now, all I have is ‘no more’.

I woke up today wanting to stay under the doona and sleep it away. I don’t handle grief all that well.